Samsung Galaxy S5

The Samsung Galaxy S5 goes by a number of other names depending on the country you are located in. It is also called the G900F in Europe, G900I in Asia and Australia, G900M on Vodafone, G900A on AT&T, G900T on T-Mobile and G900W8 in Canada as well as being called the G900K/G900L/G900S in Korea. The Samsung Galaxy S5 was released in February 2014 and was and still is a very popular mobile more than 3 years later.

Samsung Galaxy S5

The mobile phone has EDGE as well as GPRS like most modern mobile phones today. It also covers all the bands such as 2G as well as 3G and 4G as can be seen below. You will note that it covers all the 2G version from GSM 850/900 as well as GSM 1800/1900 mobile phone networks. Note that certain network bands are country specific so check where you buy your mobile phone from if you are buying a mobile phone online such as Ebay or Amazon. It might not seem important right now but it will be if your phone is meant for use in another country.

Technology GSM / HSPA / LTE

---

2G bands GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 – all versions

---

3G bands HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 – G900F, G900I HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 – G900A HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100 – G900M HSDPA 850 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100 – G900T

---

4G bands LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 20(800) – G900F LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 17(700) – G900A LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 17(700) – G900M LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 17(700) – G900T LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 28(700), 40(2300) – G900I

---

Speed HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps, LTE-A Cat4 150/50 Mbps

---

 

The mobile phone is the standard size in the Samsung range. The size is very handy and fits well into your hand with a smooth finish and only 142 x 72.5 x 8.1 mm (5.59 x 2.85 x 0.32 in) in size. It is also very light at only 145 g (5.11 oz). The mobile phone also uses a Micro-SIM comes with an IP67 certified (dust and water resistant) which you find mainly on the higher end mobile phones. It is also water resistant up to 1 meter and 30 minutes which is very useful as mobile phone insurance is getting to be very expensive.

The screen on the mobile phone is very good much like other Samsung mobile phones, the Samsung Galaxy S% is no different with its super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with its standard 16M colors ability. The screen is also large being a 5.1 inches screen which is ~69.6% screen-to-body ratio. Note that the phone does not have a wrap around screen like others so the screen to body ratio is not as high. The screen resolution is excellent with a 1080 x 1920 pixel screen and its pixel density is also good at ~432 ppi pixel density. The screen resolution is much better and has a higher pixel density (sharper pictures) than the Samsung Galaxy J5 which has also bee reviewed on this website.

The operating system is the Android 4.4.2 (KitKat), upgradable to 6.0 (Marshmallow) which is almost standard today on many of the Samsung mobile phones as can be seen in the Samsung section of this website. The Galaxy S5 uses a Qualcomm MSM8974AC Snapdragon 801 chipset which is a MSM8974AC CPU 2500 MHz max and GPU 578 MHz. you can more about the chipset here. The Samsung Galaxy S5 is powered with by the Quad-core 2.5 GHz Krait 400. The GPU is also powerful being a Adreno 330 which was released in 2013 a year before the mobile phone was released.

The internal memory is large as it has a very good camera for its price range. The memory of this mobile phone is 16/32 GB as well as 2 GB RAM. If that is not enough there is also a dedicated slot for expansion with a microSD, up to 256 GB of storage space. This will fill as there are 2 cameras on the phone. The main camera or rear camera is a 16 Megapixel camera with a f/2.2, 31mm as well as phase detection autofocus and an LED flash. The camera on the phone has a 1/2.6″ sensor size camera with  geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection as well as panorama and HDR.

Recording in HDR (High Dynamic Range) will fill the memory rather fast as it records greater detail from bright and dark areas in the photos or video. The video quality and frames rates are very good. Note that running this for a long period will shorten the charge very fast as the processor will be running high. The video comes in at 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps, 720p@120fps, HDR, dual-video rec. The secondary camera is a 2 MP, f/2.4, 22mm, 1080p@30fps camera. You can see the specifications for the Samsung Galaxy S5 above in the top tab.

The phone also has a loudspeaker as well as the usual alert tones such as vibration; MP3 as well as WAV ringtones. There is also a 3.5mm jack and a 24-bit/192kHz audio ability with active noise cancellation and a dedicated microphone. Connectivity on the phone is also good with all the standard goodies such as Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct as well as hotspot. These are found on most mobile phones today. The Bluetooth has Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP, EDR, LE as well as aptX.  GPS is also covered by A-GPS, GLONASS as well as BDS. The Galaxy S5 also has NFC, infrared port as well as microUSB 3.0  (MHL 2.1 TV-out). Note that there is no radio built into the phone.

Something that should be mandatory today which you will find on the Galaxy S5 is a fingerprint (front-mounted) sensor as well as an accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer as well as a gesture and heart rate sensor. Messaging on the phone is covered by SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail as well as an Internet Messenger. There is no Java on the phone however there is a HTML5 browser. There is also a Qi/PMA wireless charging option so look into this as well as ANT+ support as well as a photo editor.

The removable Li-Ion 2800 mAh battery in the Samsung Galaxy S5 is good for 390 h standby time and 21 h in talk time. Overall the Galaxy S5 is a well balanced mobile phone in the US$360 range of mobile phones.

.